1. Field of the Invention
Exemplary embodiments of the present invention relate to an apparatus and method for identifying a transmitter; and, more particularly, to an apparatus and method for identifying a transmitter in a digital broadcasting system.
2. Description of Related Art
Since digital TV (DTV) transmitters are provided for broadcasters and consumers, the number of DTV transmitters increases recently with the development of DTV broadcasting. Thus, transmitter identification is researched as an important feature in the ATSC synchronization standard for distributed transmission. Through the transmitter identification technology, broadcast authorities and operators can identify interference sources or transmitters that are illegally operating in certain areas.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,202,914 (issued Apr. 10, 2007 to Yiyan Wu et al.) and U.S. Pat. No. 7,307,666 (issued Dec. 11, 2007 to Yiyan Wu et al.) disclose transmitter identification systems. These patents, however, fail to provide TxID sequence identification methods that are more efficient in terms of the computational complexity and the hardware complexity of an identifier.
On the other hand, U.S. Pat. No. 6,075,823 (issued Jun. 13, 2000 to Hideki Sonoda); U.S. Pat. No. 6,128,337 (issued Oct. 3, 2000 to Schipper et al.); U.S. Pat. No. 6,304,299 (issued Oct. 16, 2001 to Frey et al.); and U.S. Pat. No. 6,437,832 (issued Aug. 20, to Orabb et al.) disclose various methods for alleviating a multipath interference. These patents use a transmitted test signal and a filter construction to eliminate a noise from transmitted DTV signals. The patents, however, fail to provide a method for alleviating an unknown timing offset, a method for overcoming a synchronization problem, and an efficient combining method. The conventional method controls the network and requires a complicated filtering circuit for a receiver, which is not cost-effective.